


There's Blood On Your Hands

by WarpingAshes



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarpingAshes/pseuds/WarpingAshes
Summary: Jed and Frank have a complicated relationship. When Jed tries to share a piece of his past life, it leads to an unfortunate realization for Frank.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	There's Blood On Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty old, but I found it and decided to post it anyways. I was just getting into Dead by Daylight and had a lot of ideas but this one in particular never ended up going anywhere after this. Anyhoo, enjoy!

Frank was bored. Julie was in a trial, Susie was off in another realm, Joey was-- _ somewhere _ . Frank didn’t know  _ where _ ; he couldn’t sense it. It irritated him, not knowing where one of his own was, but there were only so many options. Maybe he was in the Demogorgon’s realm? His ability to read his teammate’s always felt off in that realm, but then came the question of why Joey would be messing around with the Demogorgon. Too many questions, too many opportunities for his mind to wander and for him to get  _ mad _ . Frank really hated being bored.

No Julie, no Joey, no Susie… There was one other person he could think of that might help him with his boredom problem.

He forced himself up off the couch in the resort and made his way outside. The snow crunched under his boots as he walked towards the edge of his realm. Once he reached the edge he was met with the possibilities of where to go next, where he would go to find Jed.

Ghostface was one of the few killers that didn’t have a realm to call home. It didn’t make sense to someone like Frank, who couldn't imagine not having Ormond, the resort, and a place for the rest of his gang. The topic of not having a killer realm had never come up between Frank and Jed, though Frank did wonder if that meant he was the Entity’s least favorite. It would be funny to him if that were true, but he doubted it.

Though Ghostface didn’t have his own realm, he was known to lurk by the border between the killer’s realms and the survivors campfires, so that’s where Frank headed. Frank, personally, did not like being near the campfire. Something about watching them felt...off. It put into perspective just how trapped these people were and he didn’t like thinking about that.

He shook the thought from his mind as he arrived at the campfire. He was far away, but through the trees he could make out the other survivors...and feel the auras of several killers lurking in the area. Jed had to be one of them.

Frank walked around the campfire quietly, passing Myers as he searched for Jed. No shock there, he figured. Eventually he found Jed just a little too close to the border, staring at the campfire. He was likely fixed on one survivor, but with his eyes covered by the mask Frank couldn’t tell who. Frank stood for a moment, watching Jed watch others, but as the silence stretched on he cleared his throat.

“So this is what you waste all your time doing?” Frank asked, sounding confrontational right off the bat, though he didn’t mean to.

Jed didn’t move an inch or even turn to look at him.

“I don’t consider it a waste of time.” Jed said evenly, “And besides, I waste much more time with you than I do here.”

Frank scoffed.

“That’s fucking hilarious.”

“I always thought I’d make a great comedian.” Jed finally looked away from the campfire and towards Frank. “Did you need something?”

“I’m bored.” Frank said as though that explained everything.

“And I’m busy.”

“Oh really? Sorry for assuming you could push back your weird stalking time to a later date. I forgot that the Entity keeps our schedules pretty packed outside of trials-- oh wait! It doesn’t.”

Jed gave a small laugh, but Frank couldn’t tell if it was out of amusement or something else.

“Alright, I get the point. You want attention.”

“Excuse me-- I do not--”

“Then you won’t mind if I continue here?” Jed sounded incredibly smug as he spoke, and Frank was positive he was smirking beneath his mask.

He had half a mind to rip that mask off his face and see if he looked so arrogant after that but the thing was, Jed probably would. He liked his mask, his privacy, and his anonymity, but it wasn’t as big of a deal to him as it was for some killers. Jed had shown his face to Frank first, after all.

“I wouldn’t mind if you could do this from Ormond but you can’t,” Frank complained.

“You just want to go back to Ormond.” Jed said.

“I do. I hate it here.”

Jed hummed.

“Why is that?”

Frank gestured towards the campfire, then towards Jed.

“Because it’s full of you freaks spying on people. It’s weird.”

“It’s _ fun _ .”

“Not my kind of fun.”

He swore Jed rolled his eyes under the mask, he didn’t know how he knew it but he did.

“You could stand to broaden your horizons a bit.” Jed said, “You can learn a lot by watching others.”

“Oh really?”

“Mmhm.” Jed stepped closer to Frank and placed a hand on his shoulder. Frank crossed his arms over his chest in response, but didn’t shake Jed’s touch away. Jed took this as a sign he could go further. This time he nudged Frank to look at the survivors, pointing specifically at a small group of them huddled close to the campfire, “Watch. It’s all in their body language, the way Dwight is completely relaxed talking to Claudette shows they’re friends, the way Jake doesn’t mind Claudette’s hand brushing his leg shows he’s more comfortable around her than others. He doesn’t like physical contact from the others.”

“Ok? And this helps how?”

“Say Dwight, Claudette, and Jake are in a trial together. You hook Dwight, Claudette is more likely to go after him than, say, Nea. You injure Claudette, Jake and Dwight are more likely to go after her and help her. You get them where you want and you can effectively kill all three in one go.”

“That’s great in theory but you actually have to make it work.”

“You have to be patient to make it work. Something you aren’t.” Jed said evenly. Before Frank could yell at him, Jed manhandled him to look at some of the other survivors instead. “David and Nea are fighting again, Laurie and Quentin are isolating themselves off to the side, Ace is irritating Tapp again. All of this could be used if you played your cards right.”

Frank shifted uncomfortably where he stood. He tried to take in the things Jed was saying, but he just didn’t see it the way Jed did. He saw Nea and David’s bickering but he also noticed how Nea was red in the face and looked close to tears. Even from the distance he was at, he could hear them arguing only because she’d died last trial and it had clearly messed with her. He saw Laurie comforting Quentin off in their own corner, not them isolating themselves. He saw Ace annoying Tapp as a desperate attempt at Ace trying to be the other man’s friend.

“What of it?” Frank muttered, “I still don’t need to stand here for ages to be good at my job.”

“You don’t have to, but it makes the trials more fun when you know how to get into their psyche. Back to body language, look at Jeff. He’s not the most sociable but he doesn’t go out of his way to isolate himself like he is now. He’s hunched over, not looking at the others. He’s depressed and struggling to maintain hope.”

There was a pang of guilt Frank felt for that. Jed hummed and faced him again,

“Or there’s you.” He said, surprising Frank. “You’re tense and quiet. You’re uncomfortable.”

“Fucking A plus observation,” Frank snapped, shaking Jed’s hands off him this time. “I told you I hate it here. I don’t care if you think this is great, this shit blows.”

There was a beat of silence after his little outburst. Frank was pretty sure Jed was pissed with him now and that they were about to start fighting, but he didn’t care. He was used to fighting with Jed and he knew that Jed would at least want to take a fight somewhere private.

“Ok.” Jed said instead, shocking Frank yet again, “We can go somewhere else.”

“Fucking finally.” Frank breathed.

“Follow me. I want to show you something.”

Jed didn’t wait before turning and walking off. Frank stood there for a moment, feeling a mixture of cautious and curious. He took one glance back towards Jeff at the campfire then turned to catch up to Jed. He had to jog a bit to catch up, but he tried to keep close once he noticed Jed wasn’t taking them to Ormond. Instead he was taking them to Hawkins. The Demogorgon’s realm.

Appearing in Hawkins Lab was unpleasant as always. The realm was just unsettling, but he didn’t hear the Demogorgon’s screeches so he figured it was empty for the time being. Jed led him upstairs into one of the small offices.

“I’m sure you’re aware I don’t have a realm of my own.” Jed said casually as he began rummaging through a box in the small room.

“Yeah, so, what, you just hijacked the Demogorgon’s?”

“I keep things here, yes.” Jed said, taking a digital camera out of the box. “There’s hardly anything from my old life that I deemed worth holding onto. No location, no person, just this.”

“A camera?”

Jed nodded. He sat down next to the box and motioned for Frank to follow. Frank sat across from him, staring at him curiously beneath his mask. He wasn’t exactly surprised when Jed took his mask off, but he wasn’t sure if he should follow his lead here. He didn’t know when the Demogorgon would be back or if any other killers were wandering the lab right now.

“We’re the only ones here, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Jed said, looking up briefly from his camera as he messed around on it.

Frank sighed and took his mask off, though he wasn’t sure if he entirely trusted Jed’s words here. He felt like the killer was up to something.

“When I’m not in Ormond or by the campfire, I’m usually here.” Jed explained, “Sometimes I’m in the Trapper’s realm but he’s been quick to anger lately.”

“I thought he was always angry.” Frank admitted.

“No, he’s actually pretty mellow.” There was a small pause, “Oh, I found it.”

“What are we doing here?” Frank asked, frowning.

“I told you I wanted to show you something. I actually wanted to show you this some other time but now is as good a time as any.” Jed said, passing the camera to Frank.

Frank took the camera carefully and looked at the picture that Jed had pulled up. It was of a woman, dead, probably stabbed repeatedly based on the amount of blood and splatter. Frank studied the woman’s face but he didn’t recognize her as any of the survivors... 

“A dead chick.”

“My first victim.” Jed said, “From before.”

Oh.  _ Before _ . “Before” wasn’t a concept Frank and Jed spent too much time talking about. He couldn’t imagine a lot of killers liked thinking about before the Entity. There were too many memories, too many ways thinking about it all could go very, very wrong. Frank let out a small “oh” at the realization Jed was opening up to him by showing him this.

“Her name was Amy, she worked at the local diner and had a strained relationship with her mother. She was planning to move out of the city and start a new life with her boyfriend, but then I killed her.” Jed explained, as if he were reading a passage from the morning paper, “If you go through the photos I took at least one of all my victims. I can still tell you everything about them.”

Frank silently went through the pictures, trying to keep his expression neutral as he did. He saw dozens of different people in Jed’s camera. Women, men, young, old-- he had no bias in who he killed and there had been so many. It was no wonder why the Entity chose him. He was gifted in being a killer.

After a moment, Frank lowered the camera and looked at Jed.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“I wanted to see your reaction.” Jed said honestly. “I also thought we were at the point in our _ friendship _ , so to speak, where I could begin to open up to you as well.”

“But mostly you wanted to see me cringe at some dead people.”

“I wanted to see _ if  _ you’d cringe. And you did.”

Frank shrugged, handing the camera back to Jed.

“Sorry if it wasn’t the reaction you wanted.” He said, and he meant it, “Killing is something I like but I guess I don’t think about it as much as you do.”

Jed hummed, going through the pictures on his camera once more.

“Do you really like killing or has the Entity just convinced you that you do?” Jed asked, far too casually.

Frank actually froze this time. Jed pretended not to notice, pretended like this was a perfectly normal thing to ask.

“What are you asking?”

Jed looked at him this time, his eyes fixed on Frank like he was some puzzle to solve.

“I’ve had a theory for a while. I know some of the killers here need an extra push to do their jobs but I’ve wondered if some of you are doing this completely against your will. So I’m asking you if you genuinely enjoy the trials and killing or if you just think you do.”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?!” Frank snapped, standing up. “That’s a dumb thing to ask, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t like it!”

“I agree that you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t enjoy it to an extent--”

“So why ask something so dumb!?”

Jed fell quiet. He stared at Frank with an unreadable expression. As the silence drew on, Frank felt an increasing amount of discomfort and anger building inside him.

“You’re trembling.” Jed whispered.

“What?” Frank asked dumbly, only to realize Jed had been right.

Suddenly he didn’t feel so angry anymore. He just felt vulnerable. Jed’s intense stare only made him feel worse.

“You never answered my question.” Jed said.

“I don’t have to answer your dumb fucking question--”

“If you can’t answer it, that just leads me to believe the Entity is influencing you.” Jed sighed, closing his eyes. “You aren’t like me after all.”

Frank paused.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I sincerely believe my purpose in life was to kill.” Jed admitted. “I’m good at it, I enjoyed every moment of it in my old life. From stalking my victims to finally killing them, I enjoyed it. I know what I do here is because I’ve  _ always  _ felt this way about killing. The Entity doesn’t need to motivate me to do my job. I thought you were the same for a while, but then I realized the way you talk about killing is so...performative.”

Jed opened his eyes to find Frank staring at him with a hurricane of emotions in his eyes. It was obvious Frank was upset, but Jed had been reading people all his life. He could see deeper than that. He could see that Frank was conflicted and felt betrayed with how this conversation was going.

“Killing is something you do because you have a role to fill. You’re told you like it by the Entity, so you convince yourself that’s true. When you kill, you get a power trip and it makes you feel good so you keep doing it without asking too many questions.” Jed said. “Or that’s my guess.”

“Shut up.”

“Why do you want me to shut up? Because I’m right?”

“I said shut up!” Frank shouted, only startling himself with his outburst. Jed looked at him with an unreadable expression. It wasn’t helping anything-- Frank had a hard enough time reading people but Jed was a master at schooling his features. He couldn’t understand what was going through the other killer’s head or what his motives were. “What do you want from me?”

“The truth.”

The truth should have been simple, but it occurred to Frank that he didn’t _ know _ the truth. He only knew what he felt before he’d woken up in the Entity’s realm, and if Jed was right and he didn’t actually want to do this, he was just being manipulated, did that mean the rest of Legion was too? Were they the only ones? Weren’t there others like them, if Jed’s theory was to be believed? If he admitted that Jed might be right...what would happen to him? To the others?

He hadn’t realized it when Jed finally moved. He hadn’t realized his own actions either. At some point he’d begun biting his lip hard enough to make it bleed. Frank wasn’t even aware a killer could harm themselves like that. He’d also grabbed his hair in frustration so tightly it was painful. He’d almost forgotten what pain  _ felt  _ like…

“Frank?” Jed’s voice sounded so far away.

If Frank didn’t know any better, he’d have thought Jed sounded concerned. But it was ridiculous to think he’d be worried about Frank’s wellbeing. No one ever was “before”.

“I didn’t want to kill anyone,” Frank admitted suddenly, shutting his eyes tightly. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t--”

He cut himself off, forcing himself to breathe and try to stay calm. He was failing on both ends, but he forced himself to continue.

“That fucker grabbed Julie and I thought he was gonna hurt her, I didn’t know what to do so I  _ stabbed _ him and I just didn’t want to be  _ alone  _ in what I was doing.” Frank admitted, for the first time, even to himself, “ _ So I made them all do it to _ . I didn’t know what else to do!”

Jed frowned, not because he was disappointed in the information Frank was sharing, but because he’d severely misjudged the Legion’s situation. He knew Frank was the leader of their little group and that the others seemed to just follow what he did and wanted, but for the first time Jed saw Frank for what he was. A scared kid, desperate for some form of control over  _ anything _ in his life. It didn’t take much to deduce that’s all he’d ever been before the Entity.

“You were right.” Frank said weakly.

“I wish I hadn’t been.” Jed admitted quietly.

There was only silence after that. Frank didn’t have it in him to ask what Jed meant by that, or what this meant for  _ them _ . He had the distinct feeling the second he stepped out of Hawkins, everything was going to change. Something horrible was waiting for him right outside this realm, he could feel it. Had it been the right thing to admit to Jed the truth? 


End file.
